VIOLENT JUVENILE CRIME

Violent Juvenile Crime

Violent Juvenile Crime

Introduction

Over the past decade, juveniles have accounted for a larger share of violent criminal activity than ever before.2 In response to the rise in violent juvenile crime, the public has demanded that violent juvenile offenders be held accountable for their actions. To placate popular support for greater accountability, many state legislatures enacted laws imposing greater punishment on juveniles. (Curley et.al. 2004).

This modern punitive approach to juvenile delinquency, When state legislatures first established juvenile courts at the close of the nineteenth century,5 most acts of delinquency involved relatively minor misconduct. Today, children of all ages carry weapons to school and commit crimes of violence. The violent nature of modern juvenile delinquency presents a far greater danger to society.8 Moreover, unlike traditional acts of delinquency, such serious violent conduct causes significant harm not only to the victims of violence but also to the surrounding community. Historically, states were responsible for establishing and administering juvenile justice systems with little intervention by the federal government.9 As the rate and severity of juvenile delinquency increased throughout the twentieth century, however, Congress expressed greater interest in asserting control over certain juvenile matters. Recently, Congress addressed violent juvenile offenders by enacting tougher laws that allow the criminal prosecution of juveniles in federal court. In addition, legislation is pending in the Senate that would reshape federal juvenile law and encourage states to adopt a more punitive approach to serious juvenile offenses. Because actual or threatened federal intervention is likely to persist until violent juvenile crime is adequately curtailed, this Note examines the need for federal intervention to address the states' failure to control juvenile crime. Until the late 1960's, the federal government played a relatively minor role in shaping juvenile justice policy on the state level. Statutes. (Snyder, et. al. 2003).

Background

As juvenile court dispositions began to increasingly resemble sentences handed down by criminal courts, juveniles claimed that the informal and non-adversarial procedures characteristic of juvenile proceedings violated their constitutional right to due process. In 1966 the Supreme Court validated this argument in Kent v. United States51 by holding that juveniles are constitutionally entitled to due process and representation by counsel. In 1970 the Court continued to expand the constitutional protection for juveniles in In re Winship, holding that juvenile courts must apply the reasonable doubt standard in juvenile delinquency proceedings. The goal of juvenile justice systems has traditionally centered on rehabilitating juvenile offenders. In theory, deterrence accomplishes at least two interrelated objectives. First, punishment conditions the offender to refrain from taking future action, such as committing additional crimes, that will lead to additional punishment. Second, by punishing the offender, individuals contemplating criminal conduct may refrain from engaging in similar conduct to avoid similar punishment The success of deterrence depends on the ability of present and future offenders to comprehend the risks associated with engaging in the proscribed conduct. Because offense rates for violent crime generally peak around the age of seventeen and decline substantially over the next ten years, incarceration of violent juvenile ...